The medicines that Belgium has sent to war-torn Ukraine are nearly expired as they are going to expire just three weeks after its arrival, as per to the reports.
The large quantities of medicine sent as part of Belgium’s €3.4 million humanitarian help for the nation, which included 280,000 medicines and 140,000 syringes, would have expired shortly after their arrival.
About 20 percent of the medicines donated, as well as 10 percent of the supplies, have likely been wasted, as they may have expired before they could be used.
According to the sources, an additional 10,000 other items were scheduled to expire within two to five months of arrival.
Along with this, this, ultimately, would usually be in violation of the World Health Organisation’s guidelines, which state that medicines must have a valid shelf life of at least one year to be donated abroad.
The Belgian FPS Public Health admitted that it had knowingly donated almost expired medicines but insisted that it did so with the explicit agreement of Ukrainian authorities.
The Head of Crisis Management with the FPS Public Health, Dirk Ramaekers, “It had to be quick. But the Ukrainians knew that. They could see the list of goods and accepted our offer.”
In addition, the trucks that were loaded almost expired the medicines, with the government’s blessing, rolled towards Ukraine. This includes medications which simply cannot afford not to work, such as heavy painkiller fentanyl, anaesthetic propofol, and morphine.
The government did later remove the almost expired medicines from the shipment of medicines to Ukraine. However, some now speculate that the government had attempted to dump its supplies of nearly expired medicines in Ukraine.
Furthermore, the Belgian government possessed a vast supply of medical supplies, which had been stockpiled in the Brussels region as part of Belgium’s strategic stockpile for the pandemic. €98.5 million of these supplies are now expired, and this figure would have been higher if not for the war in Ukraine.